Erebos cherished what came his way. He’d learned from an early age to enjoy and hold precious, valuable things (like friendship, like love, like power), because he’d watched his father stare out over the horizon during every rainstorm, because he’d watched for fallen pieces of blossoms left by his sister, because he’d grasped and clenched and lost along his rubbled path. Sometimes he clasped so tightly he wondered if any of them could feel the pulse, the weight, the fear of his dominion – if he was doomed to lose everything he cared for, if none of them would ever look his way again, if he was destined to be a forgotten piece of the past. The boy fought, tore, and presided in every avenue, corner, and corridor, so they would remember what he was, what he was worth, and what he could become. There were some he would never catch, buried beneath snow, disappeared into nothingness, or daughters of illustrious deities, but he still tried. He still hoped. He still dreamed.
 
Maybe a part of him had always believed he and Rikyn would be together forever. They’d been born within the same season, took the same steps, laughed at the same jokes, lorded over the same adventures. But where Rikyn had broadened his reach, wandered out of Helovia and out into sanctions Erebos had never seen or heard of, the princeling stayed amidst snow, glaciers, and ruins, chasing whims, mercurial pursuits, and permitting hate to boil down all the ebullience he’d ever known. He built up walls, masks, namesakes, and lies, cast Cheshire grins and didn’t allow anyone to see the emptiness, menace, or malice curled and coiled behind the dastardly smiles and the charismatic laughter; slowly withering into more monster than knight. They weren’t the same beasts any longer. They’d grown, cast away their shells and vessels of silly, boyish charms and ridiculous dreams, built up tangible ambitions just slightly out of reach, and when it came time to test their mettle, their might, their swagger against one another, Erebos couldn’t do it.
 
He wondered if that made him weaker or stronger.
 
But lord, he’d lost too many now to cut away his ties with Rikyn, to bloody, to maul, to tear him apart. The lad wasn’t even ashamed of what he’d done, of barely pressing, of forgoing minatory prowess, of forgetting the sentiments, the notions, of extinguishing and obliterating his enemy – for Rikyn wasn’t. There’d been no prize at the end, no monument constructed, no name cast off a list. Yet, whatever process they’d been under, whatever practice had exhaled from the heated cavern, it hadn’t been enough for his companion.
 
He and Orsino listened in silence as the bay’s disappointment ricocheted off the walls in low grumbles and dissatisfied tremors. You should know better was an echoing assault along his skull, contorting and distorting the Machiavellian schemes, pleading with him to bow his head in indignity – but he didn’t. Prince faced prince, his eyes narrowed, a concentrated refrain repeating what he’d said to Enna just seasons before. “I’m tired of seeing my friends in pain.” Orsino nearly laughed through the seditious wave, for the boy had administered throngs of agony and misery upon those he considered brethren in spars and skirmished before – and now, facing legions of hypocrisy, he’d barely swung his sword. Rikyn would always be different, just as Aithniel would always be different, just as the rest of them would be segmented and quartered off in his brain – friend, foe, ally, adversary. “I don’t know where Time will take us, but when we get there, I’d rather fight with you, side-by-side,” he remarked, curbing the discourse with a slight grin. Then, a natural confidence possessed him, seized him as the other played with stones, as days of their youth and rampages of the future flickered over him, avaricious and mercenary. “If you really want to measure my strength, watch me fight an enemy,” he paused, lowering his face so he could peer into Rikyn’s and laugh, “not a friend.”